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When you think about leadership role models it’s likely that your first thought isn’t a monk. Maybe it should be though.

In his new book, Business Secrets of the Trappist Monks, August Turak explains why. Turak is not a professional writer (although he writes like one). Among a number of other things he’s done in his life, he was a corporate executive and an entrepreneur who sold his business for a nice chunk of change.

About 20 years ago, he ended up in the hospital after his first and only attempt at skydiving. With plenty of time to think as he recovered from a shattered ankle, Turak started to face his own mortality and landed in a deep funk. Through a serendipitous conversation he ended up as a resident guest at Mepkin Abbey, a Trappist Monastery in South Carolina. His stay there brought him out of his funk, changed his life and changed the way he thought about his approach to leadership.

In Business Secrets of the Trappist Monks, Turak draws on what he’s learned at Mepkin over the years about service, selflessness, indifference, detachment and other characteristics of his brothers at the Abbey to explain why you should lead like a monk.

Augie is a great storyteller. He shares a lot of compelling stories in his book and tells a few of them in this recording of a conversation we had a few days ago. Listen in.

Executive coach Scott Eblin’s goal is to help you succeed at the next level of leadership. Throughout the week, he’ll offer his take on the leadership lessons in the news and his advice on your most pressing leadership questions. A former government executive, Scott is a graduate of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and is the author of The Next Level: What Insiders Know About Executive Success.

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